Ohio teens given suspended sentence after killing mand with sandbag.
50 replies, posted
http://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-teens-suspended-sentence-dropping-sandbag-off-overpass/story?id=54302511
The four teens, all aged 13 or 14, pleaded guilty to either murder or manslaughter. The boy who dropped the sandbag pleaded guilty to murder while the other three pleaded to involuntary manslaughter, the Toledo Blade reported. The teen who pleaded guilty to murder was sentenced to the Department of Youth Services until he turns 21, while the teens who pleaded guilty to manslaughter were sentenced to three years in the Department of Youth Services.
All four sentences were suspended by the judge in favor of being sent to Toledo's Lucas County Youth Treatment Center.
"It's a treatment facility, for certain services, to provide so these boys change their behavior and can become productive members of our community," Judge Denise Navarre Cubbon said.
Fuck this judge.
Seriously.
I don't think these kids have it in their future to become productive members of any community. Waste of effort if you ask me.
No one should have their future lives ruined because of a stupid thing they did as a kid. All kids do stupid shit, sometimes petty, sometimes with serious consequences.
How about the juvie they were given initially with possibility of expungement if their behavior is perfect for 5 years after their sentence is complete? Literally anything short of life/death row is better than what happened.
Right now there is zero incentive for anyone in that community to ever trust the system ever again. All this ruling has accomplished is giving the citizens of that community a reason to become violent whenever they feel threatened. What other option is there? The system has shown that it will not protect them.
Assuming they were just being dumbass kids doing stupid shit without thinking, I can see why the judge suspended the sentence in favor of a better chance of rehabilitation.
I really doubt that this wasn't malicious. For fuck's sake, it's dropping heavy objects from an overpass. You know what's going to happen if you do that.
And even if it wasn't, they're clearly stupid enough to be a danger to the public.
Doing stupid shit as a kid isn't dropping heavy objects from an overpass on vehicles going 70mph.
You ever kill a man? Kind of fucks you up for decades.
dude there's "doing stupid stuff as a kid" like sticking a fork in an outlet, peeing against a wall in public, accidentally hitting your friend in the face with a plastic bat
there's something fundamentally wrong with the way these kids have been taught for them to think, at 14 years old, that nothing bad will happen if you drop a heavy object onto a moving car. at this point I've heard so many stories about kids dropping heavy shit off of freeways or bridges that i'm surprised there aren't more stories of kids getting sentenced for this
By 14 you should easily be old enough to understand that causing damage to other people's property, even if you don't think the damage will be "that bad", is a shitty thing to do.
While I disagree and think involuntary manslaughter is too light for the other kids, at least they are being made an example of. Maybe I'll stop hearing about senseless deaths because some kids thought it would be funny
Which was promptly overturned. If you call 8 months of vague supervision a sentence, I don't know what to tell you.
Oh, you mean like just disregarding their crimes and more or less cutting them loose with a pat on the head if they promise not to do it again? Cause that's basically what just happened.
They plead guilty.
That's why the judge handed them a lesser sentence. They just plead guilty, gave no defense and accepted the charges. Now, personally, I think the kids are probably shitty kids with shitty parents who knew better but chose to do something demonstrably wrong because it was "fun" or to one up each other as young boys do. They killed a person. They plead guilty to this. Whether that means they're better kids than expected is yet to be seen, but a point of trying to emulate more effective systems of judicial treatment than the american system is the acceptance of those who serve their time, and work to improve. If they do neither, they can't improve or rejoin, but if they honestly try to do both, then we're obligated to give them a shot once more. Otherwise, we create a criminal underworld where due to our desire to feel superior we push them back towards what caused them to commit crimes. Society has to correct those issues and we're all part of that.
Judge them all you want but should effort be put towards reforming them, and they apply effort as well then we have to try at least.
That's not how this works. They took a plea deal for the initial sentence. If they had actually rejected the deal, they would have been hit with far harsher recommended sentences. Hell, that actually happened within the last week. A teenager was shot and killed by a cop in a crime, and his accomplice was given 65 years when he rejected a plea deal for 25.
This is a case of the judge literally just stepping in and deciding to ignore a plea deal.
From the article
The four teens, all aged 13 or 14, pleaded guilty to either murder or
manslaughter. The boy who dropped the sandbag pleaded guilty to murder
while the other three pleaded to involuntary manslaughter, the Toledo Blade reported.
The teen who pleaded guilty to murder was sentenced to the Department
of Youth Services until he turns 21, while the teens who pleaded guilty
to manslaughter were sentenced to three years in the Department of Youth
Services.
All four sentences were suspended by the judge in favor of being sent to Toledo's Lucas County Youth Treatment Center.
"It's a treatment facility, for certain services, to provide so these
boys change their behavior and can become productive members of our
community," Judge Denise Navarre Cubbon said.
Accepting a plea deal is still pleading guilty.
They killed another human being, under the influence of blatant disregard, or are you seriously implying a 14 year old doesn't under stand the context of causing someone's death.
Yes, because a 14 year old kid is totally thinking about all of the consequences and possible dangers of dropping sandbags off of a highway. Kids are stupid, they most likely aren't thinking "oh hey let's go to an overpass and go kill people that sounds fun". They probably wanted to just fuck with some people, think along the lines of throwing water balloons at people passing by. If you want to properly argue that they're a danger to public and are malicious, you need to put yourself in the mindset and try to imagine yourself in their position. Bored as fuck kids find stupid shit to do, that's just how kids are.
They just had the shit idea of using sandbags instead, probably without thinking that it would do any serious damage.
I don't really know what good locking them up for more will accomplish from a rehabilitative perspective.
I also haven't watched the case that closely, so I'm not really sure how their behavior in court, and potentially interviews with child psychiatrists/etc. played out.
Uhh.. that's what I said?
The judge just ignored the deal and gave them an incredibly light sentence that barely qualifies as a slap on the wrist.
Is one of these institutions going to produce better or worse results than a traditional juvenile detention centre? Do you have any stats that show this is a bad idea? Are you for punishment or for reform?
Kids having a really terrible perception of danger, especially when it comes to fast moving objects, is nothing new and has relatively little malice to it. I know I ended up almost killing an animal once because I was having fun pushing large rocks down a steep hill to watch them tumble and go faster and faster and it never once occurred to me someone might be at the bottom of the hill.
I can understand the judge's reasoning that kids who are barely just teenagers would be better off being given a chance at rehabilitation instead of haphazardly being tossed into a frankly broken prison system that's got somewhat of a reputation for breeding repeat offenders in the US.
Expecting people to die or not, you should be well aware at any age past 10 of how dangerous dropping things onto speeding cars can be.
If they got off free I would understand the outrage but
All four sentences were suspended by the judge in favor of being sent to Toledo's Lucas County Youth Treatment Center.
They get send to a place that can hopefully help them.
Granted this only works if that place does its job, USA isn't exactly known as a place for great rehabilitation.
A lot of the executive functions of the brain aren't all that developed in teens.
There have been a couple cases that made it to the SCOTUS related to this, and basically it's been recognized teens have about as much moral culpability as the mentally handicapped.
Teens should be able to recognize that their actions have consequences, and most do develop the neural circuitry necessary for overriding those dumb impulsive thoughts eventually. The problem is that their still developing, and things don't always work the way they're supposed to. The good news is that because they're still developing neurologically, they probably have the best shot at rehabilitation.
Shitty situation regardless.
it's one thing to throw water balloons (albeit still pretty fuckin stupid and dangerous) vs dropping a goddamn SANDBAG off of a highway. one has a much higher chance to really fuck someone up. 13-14 kids aren't incapable of comprehending that
Some teens tried to throw a site fence onto a Autobahn a few days ago, but were stopped. It sickens me that this is such a common occurrence.
Trying to ruin our precious Autobahn.
Next will be Nürburgring.
Well, these kids removed one life themselves and then ruined the lives of the friends and family of that guy...
hmm i wonder how kids could possibly end up fucked up, must be all their fault, right?
Thanks for putting words in my post, but I didn't imply or say anywhere that the kids are fucked up or that it's their fault that they're fucked up
what I said was there's something fundamentally wrong with they way they've been taught, meaning the impetus is on the parents for the events that lead their children to make stupid decisions
You are exactly the reason this shit keeps happening and kids keep doing this.
The few individuals attitude of: "Ah sure, they're just kids".
Parents should be held accountable for raising scum, maybe then people will have more initiative to teach their children what is right and what is wrong.
not many kids fucken kill people though
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